I doubt any committee could effectively keep tabs on public accounts considering the current centralization of municipalities,electricity, railways etc.
Only be decentralising down to local community level and privatizing will accountable control over finances become possible. Government’s power is in their control of the money they collect.

The present socialist system was inherited from the previous Govt who were just as wasteful. Only the justifications differ.

My argument is that this is a crucial committee espcially when it comes to dealing with resources of the state.

Now if you argue like others that SCOPA under Godi has been effective I can’t quarrely with your assesment needlessly except that, I am happy to be wrong, but I not aware there is:

* A single

- Civil servant fired out of SCOPA finding.
- Minister who has been made to take some kind of responsibility cause of SCOPA effort
- MP who gave up her seat cause SCOPA acted….

A committee of this nature must have capacity to investigate, inquire and recommend strong action and see to it that such action is followed through.

So far i am afraid it has become a talk shop where MPs are polite to the executive more than anything – the exchanges make headlines for a day or two and them whoever was on the line of fire go back and frankly carries on life as usual.

Yes there are mechanisms to elect the chair but with a parliament 66 percent dominated by the ANC, They determine the chair – period.

They have made sure its a one man – that is propotional to the effectiveness u can expect.

Yours Frankly,
Onkgopotse JJ Tabane

The overall role of Parliament doesn’t squarely lie on Scopa, Scopa forms part of a bigger oversight mechanism of Parliament, Chapter 9 institutions, such as Auditor-General, Public Service Commission etc included. Portfolio committees which track the programme performance of government departments and other committees such as Committee on Appropriations (which exercise in-year monitoring of government spending)cannot be excluded in the entire chain of parliamentary oversight. I guess what I’m saying is that out of more than 50 parliamentary committees, only one Committee (Scopa) is chaired by the oppossition. This has never been proven to have compromised the oversight work of Parliament, as the ANC led committees equally make the Executive to account. This infact forces them to deploy stricter measures to densure delivery on promises, as per ANC manifesto.

It is my understanding that there are certain rules that are followed in electing Committee chairpersons and in my understanding, no rules were violated in electing Hon. Godi. The chairperson is elected by the majority rule in the first meeting of the Committe and this was followed in electing Hon. Godi to his position.

In my view, Scopa is one of the most effective Committees under Hon. Godi’s leadership. This Committee has its own approach to oversight, which include periodic meetings with the relevant stakeholders. I disagree with any view that seeks to challenge the effectiveness of Scopa. Infact such negative thinking intends to confuse the public for unknown motives.

It is also quite amazing that you would use a public forum like ThoughtLeader to air your party’s frustrations about SCOPA, while your party representative on SCOPA, Lorraine Mashiane, is actually normally quite docile in SCOPA meetings.

Just to point out that the current SCOPA activities, ANC Whip Mandla Mbili, is quite active and vocal even when it comes to gruelling Ministers. Much the same as Vincent Smith, former ANC SCOPA Whip used to be.

But I guess this wont count to you, as they happen to be representing the majority party

Thanks for your note. I have taken your technical point about ‘the constitutional requirement seriously and thanks for pointing that out.

I think the conventoin has been well established and the argument is that why such a convention is being complied with. The ANC is not therefore doing anyone a favour by half heartedy implementing that convention.

The heart of the matter is

* In order to build a democracy we have to take the role of the opposition seriously

* In order for proper oversight to happen.The ANC cannot watch itself – so SCOPA has to be given the teeth it requires to bite.

* In order for it not to be a farce infact the rest of parliament excluding the ruling party should have greater say about who becomes chair. At the moment the appointment of Godi was more of a snub to COPE and DA rather than a well considered decision that would result in what I refered to as heightened oversight.

So I stand by my argument that the ANC was deliberate in making sure that SCOPA is not as effective as it should be.

Please debate these matters – I will be intrested in your response rather than holding onto a technicallity about where the ‘rule’ or ‘convention’ is written.The fact of the matter is it was adopted by parliament and has been practiced over the last 15 years. I am addressing its merits and the fact that the ANC has undermined it.

Yours Frankly.
JJ

Instead of attacking the writer go into his article and show us where he has not been factual, accurate, correct etc ie attack his ideas/article not who he is

Brent

Firstly, JJ exposes his limited understanding not only of Scopa workings but of the broader political arena. It is a malicious fallacy that “Constitution require Scopa to be chaired by the opposition”. There is no such a provision in our constitution, in fact this is a practice that is used by Westminster Parliaments to promote not only accountability but also transparency and scrutiny. However, there is no scientific evidence that such a practice is adequate.

Core of the Scopa mandate is to follow up on AG’s findings and recommendations. As such, it was AG’s finding that there are public servants who conduct business with government, not Scopa’s. I further think that Cope should learn to be proactive and grasp with issues as they come. If it was active in committee work, I think Tabane as Dandala’s political advisor would know that Scopa is on top of issues and in the final stages of its investigation.

I’m raising these issues because it important for the likes of Tabane to feed the public with accurate facts and not deviat from the truth. This culture of spreading malicious damages resulted to the split of the ANC and the ultimate formation of Cope. If we are serious about building our country and democracy we need to refrain from feeding the society lies